Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9)

Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9) Page 66

No sooner did she find herself in the Grand Hall than another woman appeared, sitting on the Lion Throne, a dark-haired young woman in flowing red silk embroidered in silver lions on the sleeves and hem, with a strand of firedrops as large as pigeon’s eggs around her neck and the Rose Crown sitting on her head. One hand resting lightly on the lion-headed arm of the throne, she gazed regally about the Hall. Then her eyes fell on Elayne, and recognition dawned, along with confusion. Crown and firedrops and silks vanished, replaced by plain woolens and a long apron. An instant later, the young woman vanished, too.

Elayne smiled in amusement. Even scullions dreamed of sitting on the Lion Throne. She hoped the young woman had not been wakened in fright by the start she received, or at least that she had gone on to another pleasant dream. A safer dream than Tel’aran’rhiod.

Other things shifted in the throne room. The elaborately worked stand-lamps standing in rows down the chamber seemed to vibrate against the tall columns. The great arched doors stood now open, now closed, in the blink of an eye. Only things that had stood in one place for a goodly time had a truly permanent reflection in the World of Dreams.

Elayne imagined a stand-mirror, and it was before her, reflecting her image in high-necked green silk worked in silver across the bodice, with emeralds in her ears and smaller ones strung in her red-gold curls. She made the emeralds disappear from her hair, and nodded. Fit for the Daughter-Heir, but not too ostentatious. You had to be careful of how you imagined yourself, here, or else . . . Her modest green silk gown became the snug, form-hugging folds of a Taraboner gown, then flashed to dark, wide Sea Folk trousers and bare feet, complete with golden earrings and nose ring and chain full of medallions, and even dark tattoos on her hands. But without a blouse, the way the Atha’an Miere went at sea. Cheeks coloring, she hastily returned everything to how it had been, then changed the emerald earrings for plain silver hoops. The simpler you imagined your garb, the easier it was to maintain.

Letting the stand-mirror disappear — she just had to stop concentrating on it — she looked up at those stern faces overhead. “Women have taken the throne as young as I,” she told them. Not very many, though; only seven who had managed to wear the Rose Crown for very long. “Women younger than I.” Three. And one of those lasted barely a year. “I don’t claim I will be as great as you, but I will not make you ashamed, either. I will be a good queen.”

“Talking to windows?” Nynaeve said, making Elayne start in surprise. Using a copy of the ring Elayne wore next to her skin, she appeared misty, almost transparent. Frowning, she tried to stride toward Elayne and staggered, nearly tripped by the hobbling skirt of a deep blue Taraboner dress that was much tighter than the one Elayne had imagined on herself. Nynaeve gaped down at the thing, and abruptly it was an Andoran gown in the same colored silk, embroidered in gold on the sleeves and atop the bodice. She still went on about “good, stout Two Rivers wool” being good enough for her, but even here where she could appear in it if she wished, she almost never did.

“What did you put in that wine, Nynaeve?” Elayne asked. “I went out like a snuffed candle.”

“Don’t try to change the subject. If you are talking to windows, you should really be asleep instead of here. I’ve half a mind to order you — ”

“Please don’t. I’m not Vandene, Nynaeve. Light, I don’t even know half the customs Vandene and the others take for granted. But I would rather not disobey you, so don’t, please.”

Nynaeve glowered at her, giving her braid one firm tug. Details of her dress changed, the skirts growing a trifle fuller, the embroidery’s pattern altering, the high neck sinking, then rising again, sprouting lace. She was just not very good at the necessary concentration. The red dot on her forehead never wavered, though.

“Very well,” she said calmly, the scowl vanishing. Her yellow-fringed shawl appeared on her shoulders, and her face took on something of the Aes Sedai agelessness. There were wings of white at her temples. Her words contrasted with her appearance and composed tone, though. “Let me do the talking when Egwene gets here. I mean about what happened today. You always end up chattering as if you’re brushing each other’s hair for bed. Light! I don’t want her coming to the Amyrlin with me, and you know she will be all over both of us if she finds out.”

“If I find out what?” Egwene said. Nynaeve’s head whipped around, eyes panic-stricken, and for a moment her fringed shawl and silk gown were replaced by an Accepted’s banded white. Even the ki’sain went. Just a moment, and she was back as she had been except for the white in her hair, yet that was enough to put a rueful expression on Egwene’s face. She knew Nynaeve very well. “If I find out what, Nynaeve?” she asked firmly.

Elayne drew a deep breath. She had not intended to hold anything back, exactly. Not anything important to Egwene, any way. But in her present mood, Nynaeve was likely to babble everything, or else grow stubborn and try insisting there was nothing to find out. Which would only make Egwene dig harder.

“Someone put forkroot in my midday tea,” she said, and went on succinctly about the men with their daggers and Doilin Mellar’s fortuitous appearance, and how Dyelin had proved herself. For good measure she added the news of Elenia and Naean, and the First Maid’s search for spies in the Palace, and even Zarya and Kirstian being assigned to Vandene, and the attack on Rand and his disappearance. Egwene appeared to be unruffled by the recital — she even cut Elayne short about Rand, saying she already knew — but she gave a dismissive shake of her head at hearing that Vandene had made no progress in learning who the Black sister was, and that was of the gravest concern to her. “Oh, and I’m to have a bodyguard,” Elayne finished. “Twenty women, commanded by Captain Mellar. I don’t think Birgitte will find me any Maidens, but she will come close.”

A backless armchair appeared behind Egwene, and she sat without looking for it. She was much more skilled here than Elayne or Nynaeve. She wore a dark green woolen riding dress, fine and well-cut but unadorned, likely what she had worn awake that day. And it remained a green woolen riding dress. “I would tell you to join me in Murandy tomorrow — tonight,” she said, “if the arrival of the Kinswomen would not light a wildfire among the Sitters.”

Nynaeve had recovered herself, though she gave her skirts an unneeded adjusting shake. The embroidery on her dress was silver, now. “I thought you had the Hall of the Tower und